Traditionally a query box performs operations that are limited by presentation context within a web interface. Typical query boxes are programmed to take textual input and return results consistent with the web interface in which they are presented. Thus, traditionally, when one wanted to perform a web search, the query text was entered via the search box of the web browser interface, when one wanted to look up a word in a dictionary, the person first browsed to a dictionary site and then entered the word in a query box of the dictionary site, when one wanted to obtain a translation, the person first browsed to a translation site and then entered the text for translation in a query box of the translation site. On the translation site, results were returned in the language selected from a list of languages or in the language of the site itself.
Conventional image search is based on textual keywords. From an image search interface, the text “book,” will return images of books. Another approach to image search today is link based. In link based search, an image search is conducted from receiving entry of a uniform resource locator (URL) or browsing a file path in a specific image search interface.
The traditional query box is a limiting UI metaphor where users can just input text, and a certain form and amount of text. In each instance, in addition to contextual limitations, the query entry is limited by the constraints of the query box, itself.
In typical web browsers, the client is simple and merely serves as an entry point to the server that takes the query for processing based on the interface provided by the server. On the client side, the query box is a static interface with little functionality. Although some search engines provide adaptive results based on short textual input, e.g., “Weather in NY,” or “1+1,” they typically respond to one line of input, and when more than one line of input is received, it is truncated. Today's query boxes do not provide an adaptive query box on the client. This limits the types of questions a search engine can answer through a single interface. Thus, typically obtaining answers to a variety of types of questions and a variety of types of input requires accessing multiple interfaces.